If the snake is run over anywhere above its cloaca, I assume it's chance of survival is zero. I hit a bullsnake a fews years back, and at first when I went back for it, it coiled up and struck at me alot in typical bullsnake form. As I posed it for pictures, it started slowing down it's movement, and eventually died. The wierd part was that it seemed to come back alive after a while, but then died again... apparently it was only mostly dead for most of the day, but eventually was all the way really dead.

I am betting in the 85%-95% range for mortality when a car tire has been involved. Found some stuff DOR on the road that didnt have a mark on it, that i could find anyway...but dead. As psyon said, sometimes they seem fine, then just expire later. No matter where it hits them, I thinkin the damage is usually lethal. Cool thought about the pythons though.,..since they are so much hardier/bigger...wonder if one could survive being hit?

Cool thought about the pythons though.,..since they are so much hardier/bigger...wonder if one could survive being hit?

I've definitely heard of individuals that have - though the consensus seems to be that most will crawl off the road and die; a few pull through no problem. I've never DOR'd a python myself (they're hard to miss in the road,) so haven't been able to observe.

Last year I found a pretty Corn writhing on the road. I knew it was a gonner and put it in a container to shoot pics of the next day. Late that night, I looked at it one last time and it was "dead." When I opened the container in the morning it was still alive (barely by its appearance) so I put it in a terrarium with some water and looked at it once a day. After a few days, it was doing really well so I tossed an anole in and she ate it that night and a couple days later, she layed 7 eggs in the carpet I supplied for a hide. The following day, I released her where she was encountered. I wish they all could do that.Tim

Last year I found a pretty Corn writhing on the road. I knew it was a gonner and put it in a container to shoot pics of the next day. Late that night, I looked at it one last time and it was "dead." When I opened the container in the morning it was still alive (barely by its appearance) so I put it in a terrarium with some water and looked at it once a day. After a few days, it was doing really well so I tossed an anole in and she ate it that night and a couple days later, she layed 7 eggs in the carpet I supplied for a hide. The following day, I released her where she was encountered. I wish they all could do that.Tim

Sweet Jesus! What a comeback!

Before you said this, I was going to say that it's likely that with slow metabolisms, reptiles just take longer to die. This is one of the reasons that humanitarian societies claim that chopping off the head of a rattlesnake is inhumane -- they take up to one hour to fully die after the head is severed. I imagine this, and low energy requirements for movement, is what causes even obviously injured snakes to take a long time before dying or to "come back to life."

I found this little kennerlyi on a road. I think she had been hit, but a while ago. She was paralyzed half way down her body, and was dragging the last part of her body. It was completely limp. However, she seemed to be really fat, so she had been eating alright.

She was really easy to pose for photographs...

You can see how limp that part of her body was. There was no resistance there. Notice how the paralysis begins above the cloaca.

You can see where the ventral scales go from being prefect (fully mobile) to being all beat up (where the paralysis stops).

Close-up of the place where the paralysis begins.

I have no evidence that she was actually hit by a car beforehand, but it was definitely not recent. I think she looks like she's doing pretty well considering.

I watched a burm(6-7ft) get completely ran over by a big truck with a trailer and boat attatched in the oncoming lane before I could get to it. Totally smashed by all the truck tires and trailer with boat, it was still trying to get away after that so I grabbed it, it still put up a fight with blood coming out of the mouth. I bagged it, then had the vehicle I was in break down so we couldnt drop it off at the reserach center and had to take it home in the tow truck. The snake stayed at my place a full week before I could make it back down to the research center and was still as lively and pissed off as any other wild burm, and this is not the first time I had heard of similar occurances.Kevin Messenger has a good "DOR" story he might share too.

I watched a burm(6-7ft) get completely ran over by a big truck with a trailer and boat attatched in the oncoming lane before I could get to it. Totally smashed by all the truck tires and trailer with boat, it was still trying to get away after that so I grabbed it, it still put up a fight with blood coming out of the mouth. I bagged it, then had the vehicle I was in break down so we couldnt drop it off at the reserach center and had to take it home in the tow truck. The snake stayed at my place a full week before I could make it back down to the research center and was still as lively and pissed off as any other wild burm, and this is not the first time I had heard of similar occurances.Kevin Messenger has a good "DOR" story he might share too.

I can do one better . I have witnessed a lot of Pythons, getting run over by heavy duty agricultural equipment (tractors towing large plows/discers). Roughly 1/3 were dead on the spot (usually smaller ones), 1/3 were alive but in bad shape, and the remaining 1/3 had no external damage, and quickly defended themselves during capture.

As for the roadways, I have seen many DOR pythons (even large ones), and have had many not so serpent savy friends who have ran them over on purpose, only to have them crawl away and escape. I would venture a guess that many eventually died, but Pythons have been known to survive for very long periods of time after substantial injuries.

Before I was old enough to drive, I talked my dad into taking me out night driving. He wasn't too keen on it, but was supportive of my hobby. I caught a large adult male kingsnake west of Lancaster, which had just been run over, about 1/3 of the way down its body. It's ventrals at the wound point were completely jacked up, and its body in that place was extremely soft and squishy. I was heartbroken when I realized it had been hit, knowing that it would probably be dead within a day or two.I took it home and gave it water and a hide, and covered its cage so it could die or heal in peace. 15 days later it was still alive, so I offered it a small glossy snake, which it took.

Long story short, he made a full recovery back to health. He bred twice while I was in high school and produced good offspring, AND I still have him to this day.Below are my original notes that I took when I caught and began caring for him. (When you look at what I fed him, please remember that I was young and stupid.)

Little did I know as a 14 year old that my kids would one day gain a love of herps from that same snake that I picked up off the road, so sure it was going to die.

In June, 2005 we were road cruising in west Texas when we came upon a freshly-hit splendida. head was partially smashed and blood was coming out a gash in that side of the head. Long story short, I went ahead and collected her and she's still doing well to this day.

I found this little southern copperhead last night just a couple minutes after it had been clipped by a truck. It was fiesty and crawling around the road like nothing had happened but I don't think it will survive given the extent of the injury. Maybe if the injury was a little closer to the end of the tail it would have a chance. I would also guess that most don't survive even if they survive the injury i imagine it leaves them more susceptible to predation.

I currently own a gray rat snake that I found completely run over, and the head was squished and bleeding from all sides. It looked completely dead, but when I picked it up, it squirmed. After putting water in the it's mouth and sticking it in a bag, we thought it would not make it no doubt. But it later became stronger and stronger, and it lives healthy and strong almost four years now. It does happen, and I've seen it quite a bit since - mainly on larger rat snakes.

I found this nice sized cottonmouth just last week in Florida. It had clearly just been run over; you can even see the dusty tire tread marks on half its back! It opened its mouth in typical cotton fashion though the mouth was full of blood. It was very feisty and seemed to be moving pretty well. I moved it off the road and wouldn't be surprised if it ended up surviving.

When the ventrals have that look as seen in the picture, its almost always a result of a car vs snake occurance.I have seen them take a hit and keep going as well.

I once found a southern copperhead while cruising around near the Okeetee. Its head one the left side had been run over and crushed, it was stuck to the road surface, hardly moving, the ants had already begun to show.. I loosened it from the road and muttered disgust as I took it and tossed it out into the brush and treeline. An hour later as we rolled back down the same road, we spotted a copperhead, moving across. Stopping we found it was the same specimen, but a whole lot more lively. We let it continue on its way, I can only assume it lived as it showed no other signs of injury except for the eye filled with blood and the torn side of its mouth/face where the car hit it. I later wondered if the ants would have killed it, had I not loosened it.

A friend of mine has now found to 2 kingsnakes hit. One about 2 ft, was flat out dead as far as they could tell when found. Limp, bloody, lifeless. He dropped it into a bag to preserve, but when he got home it was awake and moving. Years later snake still was doing fine..

2nd kingsnakes, this one a YOY, clipped by a car on the lower half of its body. Paralysed from point of impact to its tail. It drug itself, my friend picked it up at it lived quite well for an additional year or so, however the first time it was able to eat a small adult mouse, it died??

I found this little kennerlyi on a road. I think she had been hit, but a while ago. She was paralyzed half way down her body, and was dragging the last part of her body. It was completely limp. However, she seemed to be really fat, so she had been eating alright.

She was really easy to pose for photographs...

You can see how limp that part of her body was. There was no resistance there. Notice how the paralysis begins above the cloaca.

You can see where the ventral scales go from being prefect (fully mobile) to being all beat up (where the paralysis stops).

Close-up of the place where the paralysis begins.

That is a male hognose! A gorgeous one at that, I owned an adult female who acted the same way

I have no evidence that she was actually hit by a car beforehand, but it was definitely not recent. I think she looks like she's doing pretty well considering.

-Marisa

That's an adult Male, I had an adult female who acted the same way, so strange

just found my lifer nightsnake . . . as We(Thom and I)got out of the car I saw a cat come out and was sniffing the snake . . . then a car ran over it . . . . seems fine right now, pray that it does fine

i've often wondered how many snakes with stump tails are results of a close call.

i was surprised by a five foot fox in my lane a few weeks ago. i just drove straight and straddled it. i can't believe the snake made it through with not being hit. perfect timing i guess. it was crossing and was spread straight out. six inches to the left would have been a DOR. i've got one under my belt and i don't want any more.

One night, a few years back, in the San Gabriels, I rolled up on J Teel and a carload of teenagers armed with guns. The teens were out looking for snakes to shoot, and Jeff was trying to dissuade them from doing so, while collecting data on a 30 in helleri, that the teens and Jeff had cruised simultaneously. Jeff and I noticed that the helli had suffered a broken back some time in the past, as the rear half of the snake was paralyzed and there were healed scars at the point of paralysis. The helli was using serpentine movement with the front half of it's body to pull it's limp rear half along... I used this fact as an opportunity to 'free-handle' the snake, towards shaming the teens into no longer looking for and shooting rattlesnakes as 'dangerous' and deserving only death. (Is this what you big brave guys are afraid of? ect) After 'educating' the teens for quite a while (crotes are naturally docile, not a danger, important part of the ecosystem, and of course...NEVER try to handle them as I did, ect) the teens agreed that they would never again shoot snakes.The salient part of this story is that the snake was, while a bit on the thin side, surviving his (obvious) earlier encounter with a car. We (Jeff and I) collected our data and let him continue to fare as best he could, on his own.The fact that crotes are ambush predators is probably the only reason the snake had managed to survive... It was weird... while I obviously felt sorry for the snake, I was also, in a certain sense, very proud of it as well... jim

just found my lifer nightsnake . . . as We(Thom and I)got out of the car I saw a cat come out and was sniffing the snake . . . then a car ran over it . . . .

Am I a bad person for having found myself wishing that it was the cat that had been run over before reading on?

NO! Feral cats are an ecological nightmare.

I collected a road hit gopher snake years back to feed to a kingsnake but when I got home hours later he was trying to move so I held off. Next day he was moving more so took it to herp vet that did rescues. Three weeks later they called back for me to release. Its head had been all out of whack with its lower jaw twisted and crushed. It started eating within a week at the vets without intervention. I think they can be tougher then we think.

Unlike some other animals that use a diaphragm to carry on the mechanics of breathing, snake respiration uses a much broader range of muscles in the thorax, so if all neural lines are not breached through morbid trauma, some aerobic metabolism can still continue.

On a recent W. Tx trip, I rescued a bullsnake that had been clipped by an 18 wheeler (saw it happen). The snake was (understandably) agitated and bit me numerous times as I bagged it.

There was a good amount of edema pre-cloaca, but the animal was not paralyzed so I don't think there was any nerve damage...As far as internal injuries/ruptured organs, I didn't know. Took it to a local keeper with the idea that if it survived and was able to defecate, he could take it back out and cut it loose...If it died, then it died.

Approximately a week later, he advised that the snake was very much alive and acting like a typical bull....No word on whether it ate or passed a meal.

Josh and I cruised a GB gopher snake on the shoulder that we witnessed striking at a car as it passed. When we got out, we could see that the snake had been hit near the head, but it didn't seemed crushed, its eye was swollen full of blood and its mouth was crooked. We held onto it over night and the blood had mostly cleared from its eye and it had reset its jaw. We photographed it and released it and I'm confident it survived. The biggest problem for snakes hit mid section or closer to the cloaca is the whole digestion process. Snakes take a long time to starve to death due to metabolics and biology and damage to the intestines or stomach will take much longer to kill the snake than damage to the brain or heart. As Nhherp mentioned, a kingsnake that survived for almost a year and then died after eating its first meal post-injury. If they get blocked up their meals turn their gut septic and they die faster from that than lack of calories.

On a somewhat related note about hognoses, I had a 3 year old CB snake given to me (forced adoption sort of thing) that suddenly and without explanation exhibited the same paralysis (almost exactly same length of body) and the scales started looking like that very quickly, it ate once but did not deficate and eventually (~1 month) it seemed that the snake's body in that part was actually decaying (the snake STUNK like a dead animal, although I wonder if it wasn't the mouse INSIDE the snake's gut that stunk) until I finally decided the snake wasn't going to recover and put the snake in the freezer.

Its incredible what damage snakes can tolerate. They are too sturdy for their own good in a way, if you ever consider some of the captive situations they have been known to endure.

But just sticking with accidents, there are anaerobic metabolic capacities also that organisms convert to in physical crisis that snakes would appear to be candidate.

I knew a getulus it was found in a concrete estuary structure - limp and full of water. I think it had been there a long time, with variable levels of water. When found it was held upside own and the water pressed out with thumb down ventris. The snake showed no signs of life the day he arrived but was treated for immersion injury and also some abcesses in his mouth and head. He recovered enough to eat voluntarily in a fairly short time frame and escape his holding cage to the outdoors!

I'd imagine many more snakes would survive the first encounter if they weren't temporary stunned, stuck, or injured to the point that it hindered their mobility. I'm sure the second hit gets many of them.

I once picked up an adult splendida that I was sure was a goner, only to find it was much improved in the morning. That barely moving, half limp king with a kink half-way down its body ended up straightening out almost entirely and providing many healthy clutches of babies for me and its second owner.

Additionally, I'm sure many more survive Volkswagons than Peterbuilts.

I once found a DOR that had me stumped for a while. I finally figured out it was a splendida that had eaten a longnose. By the time I found it, the longnose was in much better shape than the king. I think it got squeeeeeeezed out by the initial hit -nightdriver

These are some pretty fantastic stories indeed. I too, have had some success with removing injured snakes off the roadway. THis past May I drove upon a large chicken snake that was 'loop' coiled in the middle of a rural road just outside of Murray, KY. No movement and blood from the mouth. I picked the mostly 'limp' snake from the road and placed it into a cooler. I basically gave it safe harbor and water for the next several weeks and then eventually five large mice just before its release last week. That snake looked great on the day of the release. But one thing if for certain, it would have not stood a chance had it remained on the road.

... i too have fd snakes w/ flattened portions ~ 6" across alive (still tempting fate on the roads), and p/u a king one night; limp & dead that was live & feisty the next am loose in my vw-bug : } ive also accidently run a few over w/ my atv's & mtn bikes & they dont seem to suffer unduly, makes for a very mad atrox tho! i even managed to run over my stupid dog one time w/ my wife & daughter on the balloon tire'd bike ... thnx goodness we were on sand, i expected him to pop like a grape but he was unfazed, but he never tried to cut in front of me again :}

I don't have any stories of snakes surviving after being hit, most I see don't make it despite any attempts of healing them, however it doesn't surprise me that some make it. Because about 12 years ago Chad W. and I were hunting a huge hillside in douglas co Kansas, we were mainly in search for milk snakes but at that time we wanted to photograph and find everything. I flipped a rather large rock and found 2 copperheads, I didn't have any means to move the snakes and wanted Chad to be able to photograph them as well so I put the rock back slowly and gently, I kept hunting and about 30 min later after regrouping with Chad I took him to the rock knowing the snakes would still be there, ones head was crushed flat to the ground looke like brain matter was oozing out and was very dead, the other was fine, I fealt so stupid for not moving them before putting the rock back. We decided to bag the dead snake and use it for the whole potential ie skinning it I probably even though about eating it so that it didn't die pointlessly. When returning to Chad's house I opened the bag and found a very live phaeogaster, that had a small mark on its head but completely alive and well. I have since learned to move snakes from under the rocks before putting them back, this happened when I first got really good at finding snakes. So it doesn't surprise me to hear of snakes coming around, some are very hardy

A couple years ago I was cruising a paved road in SE Az at night and came upon a checkered garter snake that was rubbing its nose almost raw on a particular section of the road right in the middle of a lane....I pulled over, parked and walked over to the snake. He quickly fled into the roadside grass and I figured that was that....He was rubbing his nose against some spadefoot toad remains of a long deceased toad....Really ground into the pavement....

Anyway, an hour or so later I cruise by this same spot and there's a DOR snake in the middle of the lane. Sure enough, that snake had come back out of the grass and proceeded to try and eat some spadefoot roadburger/pancake. Only this time, the car that came along wasn't as forgiving.

This snake was now definitely DOR with no shot at demonstrating a snake's remarkable recouperative powers....Hard to do that when one's head is obliterated by car tires.